Marsha
- Pronunciation
- [Mar-sha]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Marcia.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Marsha
Marsha is a modern spelling variant of Marcia, the feminine form of the Roman family name Marcius, which derives from Mars — the Roman god of war. Through that lineage Marsha shares its ultimate etymology with Mark, Marc, and Marcus, all of which trace to the same divine source. As a respelling of Marcia, Marsha has no independent ancient etymology; the -sha ending is a phonetic rendering of the -cia that reflects how English speakers naturally pronounced the Latin original, and this spelling variant became particularly popular in mid-twentieth-century America when it followed its own distinct naming arc.
Marsha first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1946 and peaked in 1950 at its best rank of #68, sitting at #75 in 1952 with 5,583 births. The name maintained a presence through 1954, last ranking at #86 with 4,965 births, and accumulated 43,554 top-1000 births across its nine years of tracked presence — a concentrated burst of popularity that makes it unmistakably a postwar baby-boom name.
Today Marsha occupies the same mid-century vintage territory as names like Shirley, Donna, and Linda. Its particular spelling gives it a warm, casual quality that differs subtly from the more formally Latin Marcia, and it carries the specific sound of 1950s American popular culture. Parents who choose it today are typically seeking a name with a clear generational identity and a familiar but uncommon quality in current cohorts.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Marsha
US Popularity History (1946–1954)
Annual US births named Marsha by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1952 with 5,583 girls named Marsha (girl rank #75 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1954, ranked #86 for girls (4,965 US births). That's 11 places below its 1952 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Compare Marsha to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Marsha against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).